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Top10 remains unquestioned, some memes crept in (and can be safely ignored: you can’t convince me that ELEX managed to go so high by virtue of anything but cumulative joke votes), some old geezers fell down, but let's not overblow obvious generational change. Careful analysis would be very interesting however.
Just by the way, Morrowind, I prophesize, will continue to fall down with each next voting, reasons for which I wrote about elsewhere. It's in a certain way really sad, but understandable.
I'm not so sure. It received more points than in the previous poll, although in lower proportion to some others in the top 10. However, Deus Ex gained 3 spots and Fallout 2 (which actually lost a minor amount of points) suffered the same fate as Morrowind, dropping down by 3 places. This to me suggests a certain margin of error for games outside of the Big 2 of Planescape: Torment and Fallout. You predict that Morrowind will fall, but there is nothing to usurp its position. The nearest game (Age of Decadence) received only 11 less votes, but it also received 54 less points. Even with the downvotes included, Morrowind retained its position in 10th place, as we have seen. For Morrowind to fall, I think there would need to be a pretty enormous release in the next five years.
I also think the big gains for Deus Ex display the reason for this margin of error existing for games in the top 10, and just outside it - people felt that by being left out of the top 10, Deus Ex had been slighted in the last poll. People who had voted for Fallout 2 last time probably chose other games this time around, or just chose to give it less points, feeling its position was reasonably secure. Rather than a fall, I wouldn't be surprised to see Morrowind gain a position or two in the next poll, as people increase the amount of points given or elect it alongside their other choices, to ensure it doesn't fall out of vaunted the top 10.
Perhaps its drop is due to a declining trend in its popularity for reasons you have stated, but there has always been an extremely vocal group of people that have disliked Morrowind (most of whom love Gothic 2, you'll find). Codex also has the most vehemently anti-Witcher 3 population that you'll find on the internet, but that didn't stop it from grabbing 15th place. As above, I'm proposing statistical reasons for its fall.
Top10 remains unquestioned, some memes crept in (and can be safely ignored: you can’t convince me that ELEX managed to go so high by virtue of anything but cumulative joke votes), some old geezers fell down, but let's not overblow obvious generational change. Careful analysis would be very interesting however.
I didn't vote for Elex, because it isn't one of my absolute favorite games ever. But I honestly found it to be a really good game. And if you've watched the Elex-thread here close to and post release you might have noticed that most Codexers were really excited that their meme turned into something real.
Yes, for some there still is a meme element to it, but many believe it to be a genuinely good game, or at the very least a significant incline over the Risen series.
Besides, I'm a little surprised to see PoE2 so well ranked, when the forum seemed to hate it.
The second point is the number of games that are not really RPGs but games with a statistics sheet.
I'm not so sure. It received more points than in the previous poll, although in lower proportion to some others in the top 10. However, Deus Ex gained 3 spots and Fallout 2 (which actually lost a minor amount of points) suffered the same fate as Morrowind, dropping down by 3 places. This to me suggests a certain margin of error for games outside of the Big 2 of Planescape: Torment and Fallout. You predict that Morrowind will fall, but there is nothing to usurp its position. The nearest game (Age of Decadence) received only 11 less votes, but it also received 54 less points. Even with the downvotes included, Morrowind retained its position in 10th place, as we have seen. For Morrowind to fall, I think there would need to be a pretty enormous release in the next five years.
I also think the big gains for Deus Ex display the reason for this margin of error existing for games in the top 10, and just outside it - people felt that by being left out of the top 10, Deus Ex had been slighted in the last poll. People who had voted for Fallout 2 last time probably chose other games this time around, or just chose to give it less points, feeling its position was reasonably secure. Rather than a fall, I wouldn't be surprised to see Morrowind gain a position or two in the next poll, as people increase the amount of points given or elect it alongside their other choices, to ensure it doesn't fall out of vaunted the top 10.
Perhaps its drop is due to a declining trend in its popularity for reasons you have stated, but there has always been an extremely vocal group of people that have disliked Morrowind (most of whom love Gothic 2, you'll find). Codex also has the most vehemently anti-Witcher 3 population that you'll find on the internet, but that didn't stop it from grabbing 15th place. As above, I'm proposing statistical reasons for its fall.
Good insight, thank you for that. I agree with what you wrote, especially with points about people increasing their support for Morrowind in the future to ensure that it remains in top10, even if at #10 (there’s a separate issue: how many will care? I doubt that many enough). That’s what I didn’t take into consideration, which was short-sighted counting in that I voted like I did precisely for same tactical reasons. Still, I would not overestimate these statistical factors, or at the very least I would wait for someone more autistic with more beautiful mind to procure careful numerical analysis of the results in comparison with results from previous votings.
It's sad that good games like the Expedition series didn't make it, because they deserve more exposure. Someone might learn about them through the Top 50 list.
Also, I'd gladly throw away D:OS2. I don't know how can you call yourself an RPG player and enjoy that, unless it's about playing coop high with your retarded friends.
Agreed, there's clearly a giant leap in quality in the 1987-1992 era, and a renaissance in the 1997-2002 era.
Then death and despair for almost a decade.
I still think we are in an "Age of Incline" since 2012, with more developers and interesting games being released, but it's like music: full of fragmented niche stuff. I wonder if we'll get a big, new name in the Top 10.
Maybe Cyberpunk 2077, if they make it more RPG-like... then again, the new Deus Ex games flopped pretty hard on this poll....much more than I expected.
I do think there's a valid point to make about how top-heavy the list is, voting wise. The top 20 having more votes than all the rest combined maybe hints that some good but not amazing games are getting low-balled. I think the voting scheme is great overall, but maybe some kind of mechanic to encourage a "bonus game" not in your top 10 but worth of consideration could be thought of.
It's a consequence of the voting system. I'm not going to pile on the bitching, but suffice it to say that less popular games suffer exorbitantly. For the games few people have played to be rated fairly in the poll, those who have played them would have to vote strategically, and many people, including myself, don't bother to do so. If I had been given 100 points, Ultima V would've gotten some, but as it stands I had none to spare for it, which means that as far as the numbers are concerned I like it exactly as much as I like Dragon Age Inquisition.
It's a poll for the best RPGs, not for the "kinda ok, would maybe give more points if I had" RPGs. So if 12 people love Nier: Automata enough to give it 4 or 3 points each, it should definitely be higher than the game 11 people gave only 1-2 points.
The original goal was precisely to stop the cargo cult & poser votes, to force people to put their points where their mouth is. And I still think it's very good at that.
The problem is that it encourages a very top heavy voting, with the top 20 having more points than the other 250. This could be considered good because we are looking for the best RPG, rather than ranking all of them, but from the 23 spot and on the differences between games come down to one or two points, with many ties, so that part of the list gets sketchy.
Essentially, what you have below the top positions (certainly below top 50, where the Ultimas hang out) doesn't reflect the Kredible Kodex Konsensus so much as the opinions of that one weirdo who loves this one game more than he loves Fallout. Is this a problem? Not really, but it makes the ranking of the lower half of the list mostly irrelevant, and so [shit game] being higher than [good game] is less an indicator of the Codex's bad taste the further down you go, which makes complaining about it p dumb (I still do it, of course). I was just pointing out the limitations of the popularity contest approach. As a general indicator of Codex Most Favourite RPGs it's fine, but as a ranking of Codex Top RPGs In Order Of How Much We Like Them, not so much, depending on how long you intend to make the finalized list.
Anyway, it wasn't meant as criticism of your system; if nothing else, the value of staying consistent with the previous poll is high enough to make this the preferred method more or less by default.
Maybe a section of the vote called 'special mentions' separate from the 25 points, that usually go to the top 20 games anyway. Everyone could have 10 special mentiones worth 0,5 points (or 1) each and they could not be used to bolster the games from the previous top 20.
Maybe special section called 'special mentiones' separate from the 25 points, that usually go to the top 20 games. Everyone could have 10 special mentiones worth 0,5 points each and they could not be used to bolster the games from the previous top 20.
Agreed, there's clearly a giant leap in quality in the 1987-1992 era, and a renaissance in the 1997-2002 era.
Then death and despair for almost a decade.
I still think we are in an "Age of Incline" since 2012, with more developers and interesting games being released, but it's like music: full of fragmented niche stuff. I wonder if we'll get a big, new name in the Top 10.
Maybe Cyberpunk 2077, if they make it more RPG-like... then again, the new Deus Ex games flopped pretty hard on this poll....much more than I expected.
New Deus Ex is definitely one of those games that people can like very much but not vote on because it's RPG-ness isn't strong enough. Cyberpunk will probably fare better in the future because CDPR is an established (action)RPG dev. Also it will probably be a better game too.
There has been an upswing since 2012 and kickstarter and all that, for sure. Also, the strongest titles in three major RPG archetypes (reactive TB tactical [FO-style], IE-like, blobber) -- arguably, I suppose -- come from non-crowdfunded titles (e.g. AoD > WL, Kingmaker > PoE, M&MX/Grimrock > Bard's Tale). So I'd argue that crowdfunding "dying" does not threaten the Age of Incline. In fact with Kingmaker being the one game I've enjoyed the most, together with Deadfire (both games being relatively recent), and stuff like Bloodlines 2, Cyberpunk, WL3 (fewer writers + Ziets on board -- could be good!) being in production, it tells me the Age of Incline may even be at its strongest right now.
Add to that whatever unannounced stuff Obsidian is working on (and also considering Outer Worlds, I suppose), and unannounced stuff in general... All that and I haven't even mentioned consoles or eastern productions.
Here is a separate list that excludes the shameful scumbags like myself who did not give at least 2 points to Pool of Radiance, Grimoire, JA2, Wizardry 7 and Wizardry 8 (selected on the basis of the fanboy method above). 1-pointers are excluded because your pity point is insulting. The max points given by a single user for those five games is 15 (from mondblut and Dorateen). In total, 107 codexers have at least some 'thal in them and gave 2 or more points to these games.
Methods
Methods
The new measurement are non-subhuman points (NSP):
1 point original from a full mondblutian (15 points, which is the max) = 1 NSP
1 point original from a full subhuman (0 or 1 points) = 0 NSP
everyone else is a hybrid of mondblutian and subhuman, such that if a user gave 6 points, each point from him is worth 6/15 = 0.4 NSP
New total ranking adjusted for mondblutianism
[new rank] [name] ... [NSP] ... [ranks won or lost]
1 Jagged Alliance 2 … 54.3 … 12
2 Fallout 1 … 43.9 … 0
3 Wizardry 8 … 40.6 … 17
4 Planescape: Torment … 38.4 … -3
5 Grimoire: Heralds of the Winged Exemplar … 36.3 … 17
6 Fallout 2 … 31.6 … 0
7 Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura … 30.9 … -3
8 Vampire: The Mascarade - Bloodlines … 29.5 … -3
9 Wizardry VII: Crusaders of the Dark Savant … 29.1 … 20
10 Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn … 28.7 … -7
11 Pool of Radiance … 26.1 … 15
12 Deus Ex … 15.9 … -4
13 Dark Souls … 15.7 … -1
14 TES III: Morrowind … 15.3 … -4
15 Fallout: New Vegas … 14.9 … -8
16 M&M IV-V: Xeen … 13.5 … 23
17 Gothic 2 … 13.1 … -8
18 Age of Decadence … 11.8 … -7
19 Pathfinder: Kingmaker … 10.9 … -5
20 Underrail … 10.2 … -4
21 RoA II: Star Trail … 9.6 … 21
22 M&M II: Gates to Another World … 9.2 … 45
23 Betrayal at Krondor … 9.1 … 2
24 Dark Sun: Shattered Lands … 8.3 … 10
25 Shadowrun: Dragonfall - Director's Cut … 8.3 … 3
Longer list:
26 System Shock 2 … 8.1 … -2
27 Ultima Underworld I: The Stygian Abyss … 8.1 … 10
28 Baldur's Gate … 6.7 … -9
29 Divinity: Original Sin … 6.3 … 3
30 Gothic … 6.3 … -13
31 Pools of Darkness … 6.0 … 69
32 M&M VI: Mandate of Heaven … 5.7 … -5
33 The Temple of Elemental Evil … 5.7 … 8
34 Wizardry VI: Bane of the Cosmic Forge … 5.7 … 35
35 Kenshi … 5.0 … 31
36 Knights of the Chalice … 5.0 … 22
37 Ultima VII: The Black Gate … 4.9 … -6
38 Dark Souls II … 4.5 … 15
39 NWN 2 … 4.0 … -18
40 TES II: Daggerfall … 3.9 … 16
41 Arx Fatalis … 3.9 … 16
42 The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt … 3.9 … -27
43 Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen … 3.8 … -13
44 Wizardry I: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord … 3.8 … 3
45 Elminage: Gothic … 3.7 … 14
46 ATOM RPG: Post-apocalyptic indie game … 3.4 … -2
47 Icewind Dale … 3.4 … -24
48 Darklands … 3.3 … 0
49 M&M VII: For Blood and Honor … 3.3 … 14
50 Dungeon Master … 3.2 … 12
51 SW:KotOR 2 … 3.1 … -33
52 King of Dragon Pass … 3.1 … 2
53 Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar … 2.9 … -1
54 Birthright: Gorgon's Alliance … 2.9 … 72
55 Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny … 2.7 … 20
56 FRUA … 2.7 … 65
57 NEO Scavenger … 2.6 … 21
58 Dark Heart of Uukrul … 2.6 … 59
59 Anachronox … 2.5 … 5
60 The Witcher … 2.4 … -24
61 QfG IV: Shadows of Darkness … 2.3 … 19
62 Buck Rogers - Countdown to Doomsday … 2.3 … 54
63 Prey … 2.3 … 16
64 Mount & Blade: Warband … 2.2 … -24
65 Diablo … 2.2 … 12
66 Dark Souls III … 2.1 … -5
67 Sengoku Rance … 2.1 … 5
68 Diablo 2 … 2.0 … 2
69 Kingdom Come: Deliverance … 2.0 … -34
70 Wasteland … 1.9 … 14
71 ELEX … 1.9 … -33
72 PoE II: Deadfire … 1.7 … -26
73 M&M III: Isles of Terra … 1.7 … 58
77 Siege of Avalon … 1.7 … 72
74 Disciples of Steel … 1.7 … 61
75 Fallout: Ressurection … 1.7 … 61
76 Nahlakh … 1.7 … 62
78 Wizardry V: Heart of the Maelstrom … 1.6 … 26
79 Star Control II: The Ur-Quan Masters … 1.6 … 4
80 Wasteland 2 … 1.5 … 9
Most subhuman popular games
This measure assesses the proportion of points gained in the adjusted mondblutian rating versus the mainstream subhuman rating. It then compares the two, so that a negative result means that the game got fewer points in relative terms (rather than in absolute terms).
Formula: (NSP for the game / total NSP) - (points in the original poll / total points in original poll) * 1000
The following games lose the most in this calculation: [rank] [name] [relative loss]
1 Planescape: Torment -16.5
2 Fallout: New Vegas -13.5
3 Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn -12.8
4 The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt -12.5
5 Gothic 2 -12.3
6 SW:KotOR 2 -11.6
7 Deus Ex -11.1
8 TES III: Morrowind -8.5
9 Gothic -8.1
10 NWN 2 -6.9
11 Age of Decadence -6.8
12 Baldur's Gate -6.2
13 Divinity: OS 2 -6.0
14 Icewind Dale -5.1
Longer list:
Most mondblutian popular games
Formula: as above. You might want to exclude the top 5 because they are reference points. [rank] [name] [relative gain]
1 Jagged Alliance 2 … 50.9
2 Wizardry 8 … 37.9
3 Grimoire: Heralds of the Winged Exemplar … 36.4
4 Wizardry VII: Crusaders of the Dark Savant … 29.1
5 Pool of Radiance … 24.4
6 M&M IV-V: Xeen … 10.8
7 M&M II: Gates to Another World … 8.9
8 Pools of Darkness … 6.5
9 RoA II: Star Trail … 6.3
10 Wizardry VI: Bane of the Cosmic Forge … 4.6
11 Ultima Underworld I: The Stygian Abyss … 3.8
12 Dark Sun: Shattered Lands … 3.5
13 Kenshi … 3.4
14 Shadowrun: Dragonfall - Director's Cut … 2.6
15 Betrayal at Krondor … 2.4
16 Knights of the Chalice … 1.9
17 Dark Souls II … 1.2
18 The Temple of Elemental Evil … 1.1
19 M&M VII: For Blood and Honor … 1.1
20 Fallout 2 … 1
21 System Shock 2 … 0.9
22 Divinity: Original Sin … 0.9
23 Dungeon Master … 0.9
24 Arx Fatalis … 0.6
25 TES II: Daggerfall … 0.5
26 Elminage: Gothic … 0.5
Plot with most and least subhuman games
This plots the total non-subhuman points of a game (i.e., P:T is still high on this) versus the favourability of the game relative to mainstream Codex opinion (P:T is very low on this). You can see, for instance, that mondblutians are less upset about the decline between Fallout 1 and 2. It excludes the "big five", but here is a version of the plot which doesn't.
Above the line: good and monblutian (M&MIV, M&MII, RoAII, Pools of Darkness)
Bottom right: good, but overrated (P:T, BG2, Fallout:NV, Deus Ex)
Bottom left: Codexian subhuman (KOTOR2, TW3, NWN2; further subhumanity like TW1, Kingdom Come, M&B, ELEX is continued here)
also infinitron deleted that but someone filtered votes according to mondbluts tastes.
obviously a whole lot of blobbers made it.
kingmaker made the list.
torment didnt.
probably infinitron was angry poe didnt make it and nuked it.
original has been restored. Infinitron watch continues. we shall document his wrong doings whenever we can!
also infinitron deleted that but someone filtered votes according to mondbluts tastes.
obviously a whole lot of blobbers made it.
kingmaker made the list.
torment didnt.
probably infinitron was angry poe didnt make it and nuked it.
